2012 British GP, Silverstone experience [Archive] (2024)

Gord96BRG

5th July 2012, 13:01

I'm extremely lucky this year to be attending two F1 Grand Prix races, after a lifetime of reading about F1 and watching the races on TV. I did manage to get to the Montreal race in 2008 and 2010, and this year as well - I wrote about it here in this thread: 2012 Canadian GP, Montreal experience (http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=464085).

The other race I'm attending is this weekend, the British GP. The timing of our summer trip just happened to coincide with the race - we just spent 5 days in London, then we were to head over to Dublin to spend 2 weeks with my wife's parents. Once I realized the calendar alignment, I changed my plans - I waved goodbye to my wife and daughter this morning as they left for Heathrow, then I caught a cab to pick up my rental car and head north of London. Since attending this British GP is likely a once in a lifetime thing, I decided to make the most of it, and splurged a bit on the rental car... :jump: The same outfit also rented a range of older and new Ferraris, Aston Martins, Jaguars, etc., but this one just seemed so right for the occasion! (and was a whole lot cheaper than the more powerful exotics, but I will admit to being sorely tempted by the 328 or 355 Ferraris)

I brought my own GPS, set it for my hotel destination in Banbury (about 14 mi from Silverstone race track), set it to avoid major highways, and headed out. The drive of 90 miles took nearly 3 hours, covering all sorts of winding A and B roads, and very little of the motorways. :D The route was really perfect for the small, light Elise. I'm not quite sure where I went, but it was a really fantastic trip, with sunshine, narrow winding roads and stereotypical old English villages.

This was my first time driving an Elise, this one being a 2007 Elise R powered by the Honda engine, and it was a very interesting introduction. The renowned Probax seats were not really comfortable - I fit fine, but the bottom was too flat and I was getting sore after 3 hours. I actually prefer my modified 95M seats! The steering was really light, and didn't offer as much feedback as I was expecting. I didn't push much in the corners, but it didn't seem to load up much as cornering forces built. Interesting!

My race plans evolved relatively late, in April, so I didn't have first choice of seats or hotels. I would have loved to be staying in or around Silverstone village, as my grandmother was born in Silverstone in 1896, so I plan to go past the house where her family lived tomorrow (they emigrated to Canada in June 1912, sailed from Southampton 2 months after Titanic did). Instead, I'm staying in Wroxton, just outside of Banbury, and the hotel is a pleasant surprise - not your typical Best Western (but it is a Best Western) it doesn't get more "English" than this! (and is worlds different than downtown Montreal)

The weather today is dry and even sunny, but showers are still in the forecast for race weekend. I'm planning on driving to the track on Friday and Saturday, and catching a Park and Ride bus in Banbury on Sunday (passes already booked). My race seats are at Luffield corner - I don't think they'll be as good as the Montreal seats at the hairpin, but I will spend lots of time elsewhere around the track on the first two days. I really want to take in the whole Silverstone experience, even if it includes a bit of rain! ;)

Oh yeah, if you're ever in the London area, and are also a fan of the Harry Potter series, I highly recommend visiting the Warner Brothers Studio Tour for The Making of Harry Potter, where they took the original Leavesden WB studio that was used for filming the entire series of 8 films and converted it into a tourist attraction!

(Actual F1 content will follow tomorrow... ;) )

jay dub

5th July 2012, 15:05

Greg 713

5th July 2012, 16:58

Hawkstrike

6th July 2012, 10:05

MXHDROOM

6th July 2012, 11:54

Looks like a great time, Gordon. Hopefully it will dry out a bit over there; the reports from Silverstone talk about "Glastonburyesque" mud around the public parking and camping areas.

Is that Elise 4WD?

Gary

Gord96BRG

6th July 2012, 13:37

Planet F1 story - Traffic jams and mud (http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/7875691/Traffic-jams-and-mud)!

That pretty much sums up today! It only took an hour to get to the circuit this morning, about 30 min of that in crawling traffic. It turns out I was extremely lucky to get in when I did, about an hour later things came to a standstill - literally. After wandering around in the mud and rain for a few hours, and watching cars crawl around in the puddles on track, I decided to leave early and was going to head over to the nearby Heritage Motor Centre Museum (http://www.heritage-motor-centre.co.uk/). I left the track area at 2:00 pm... and didn't leave the circuit until 5:30 pm!

The traffic was not moving, period - I talked to a bunch of different people, who had been waiting to get into the circuit and park for over 5 hours!! Basically, the organizers decided to close a few of the fields that were designated for camping, but didn't tell traffic control, who still let all the campers with passes for those fields into the circuit traffic. Once inside, they had nowhere to go, and quickly caused a massive backup. Since they were using both directions of the road coming in for inbound traffic, the jam was 4 lanes wide and extended back around 10 miles down the motorway :eek: Also since they were using both directions of the road for inbound traffic, when people wanted to leave, there was no way out... except for a single lane road around the back of the circuit, which nobody could get to because of the jam of people still trying to get in. There was one particular roundabout which was at the root of the jam of campers, cars, coming and going, and there was not a single cop or traffic control person there for at least an hour while we stood and marveled at the stupidity of it all! Nobody was telling the campers they couldn't get to their camp site and they'd have to move out; nobody was telling people on the motorway that there was a huge jam in Silverstone and that they wouldn't be able to get in, and redirecting them, instead they kept just directing everybody in. When one young guy in a yellow jacket (traffic control) finally showed up, it was suggested that he should start directing campers and vans to the exit to stop them blocking the traffic, he said "I can't do that, it's not my job". I was enjoying the spectacle, I asked him to give me his yellow jacket and I'd have no problem trying to clear things up. He looked confused by the suggestion!

The Elise was parked in one of the grass fields, and even though nobody was getting out (in fact, the traffic guys had started to direct the incoming traffic into the grass field lot at around 2:30 pm, just to put it someplace, even though it was 3/4 full and turning to mud by that point after a day of steady, solid rain), I decided to move it to a solid roadway and line up at the upper exit before things got too muddy, as there were already lots of people getting stuck lower down in the field. I had to stay with the car then in case the lineup started to move, but it took another 2 hours before that happened. :rolleyes: By the time I was driving out at 5:30 after they finally cleared up the jams, some people had waited in the traffic jam for over 7 hours, and never got out of their car. Unbelievably pathetic organization.

The camera never left the packpack, it was raining too hard right up until after 5:00 pm, when it slowed to a drizzle and patches of blue sky appeared. The track action was minimal, as the F1 guys only did a few laps in each session because of the stupid rules limiting the total number of inter and wet sets of tires for the entire weekend - IIRC, 3 sets of wets and 2 inters, with another set of intermediates that can be used on a Friday. Unfortunately, it was a definite full/extreme wet day, so the teams only used one set per car and did very limited running.

So my Silverstone experience started out with stereotypical rain, cold, mud, and traffic problems - I'm hitting all the Silverstone highlights this weekend already! :D

It's supposed to be a bit more dry tomorrow, with only scattered showers forecast right now. I'll be leaving the hotel at 6 am, to get to the track before 7, to try to make it into one of the hard surface parking lots. Sunday I have a park'n'ride pass to park near Banbury and catch a shuttle bus to the track, but I suspect they use a big grass parking lot anyway...

eunosfan

6th July 2012, 19:33

Gord96BRG

7th July 2012, 03:30

Good thing I didn't read saz' post before I left this morning! ;)

Left the hotel at 6, joined the queue at the off-ramp to Silverstone at 6:40, was parked in a hard surface lot at 7:20 am. It's cold, overcast, windy, but no rain at the moment. It could be a loooong day!

I'm sitting in the Club grandstand right now, waiting for P3 to start in 30 minutes. Will post pics later!

Stilton A. Cheese

7th July 2012, 05:50

Ronin38

7th July 2012, 09:05

Gord96BRG

7th July 2012, 13:29

I was going to revise my F1 Challenge choices after P3 this morning, but the 3G network must have been overloaded after I made my last post, I couldn't get a connection again at the track.

No rain in the morning, but it was cold and windy. P3 was dry on the track surface, but the astroturf and grass was sodden, so any touch of the edges sent cars spinning. All the teams were out for the entire P3 session, as they had a lot of dry testing to complete to make up for the wet day yesterday.

There was a shower just before Qualifying, so the track was wet for Q1 session. Heavy rain started again mid-way through Q2, and it poured... causing a 1.5 hour rain delay. Even though I was sitting in the covered Club grandstand, I was in the front row to take pictures, and the wind was coming from the direction to blow the rain in on the first 2 rows... :mad: (if there was a shivering frozen smilie I'd use that one!) Aside from some shivering, it wasn't too bad, and there was plenty of action once Q2 resumed.

There wasn't near as many Ferrari fans as there were in Montreal, a majority of people were wearing the Rocket Red McLaren Vodafone caps, I'd say that the McLarens and Hamilton and Button are the definite fan favourites. Not surprising, really. ;) So far I have not seen much additional vendor stands than there were in Montreal, just different food stand choices. The Team logowear stands have a slightly greater selection of shirts, caps, and trinkets than they had in Montreal, but not that much more.

The heliport was running today, and there were non-stop helicopters taking off and landing all day - seriously, at least one a minute. I did read about a heli-shuttle service, but I don't know the cost. That would be cool to arrive by helicopter, and avoid the traffic jams!

Speaking of traffic, there were no major issues or jams today. I already mentioned my early start this morning, and this afternoon I decided to leave at 4 pm after the delayed F1 qualifying session finished, so I missed the GP2 and GP3 first races (they race again tomorrow). It took about 45 minutes to get from car park to motorway, not too bad at all, and it was all moving smoothly. I did see people directing traffic where needed today... :rolleyes:

Pictures are downloading from the camera now, I'll post some up later.

Oh yeah, car spotting - I've spotted lots of exotics in London including quite a few Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but at the track yesterday my rental Elise was matched by two others, and a few Porsches (911s, Boxsters, and Caymans), and that was as fancy as it got. Today, though, I saw a couple of Aston Martins, an old E-Type Jag, a Lotus Exige, and another couple of Elises, but the spots of the day were a Ferrari FF (gray), topped by a McLaren MP4-12C in bright orange, sitting in the middle of the cars in the lot just down from my spot!

Gord96BRG

7th July 2012, 17:49

Pictures from Saturday Qualifying:

1. The rental Elise parked up in a hard surface lot, close to the main track spectator entrance on the West side of Silverstone circuit.

2. The grounds early on Saturday morning - the mud was twice as deep by the end of the day!

3. A couple of food options... (with more mud)

4. The new (last year) International Hangar Straight pit complex, from the general viewing area across from the pits, looking toward the Club grandstand

5. Club covered grandstand - I think these might be the very best seats at the track (but they sell out in July for the next year's race). From Club you can see the entry to Vale corner, all the way through Club corner onto the start/finish straight, and if you have the right seats, you can see down the Pit lane and see the podium. (next set of pics shows the views from Club grandstands)

Gord96BRG

7th July 2012, 18:31

1. View from Club grandstand, looking towards Vale corner

2. View towards exit of Club (which is really a two apex corner, Vale is a tight 90* left hander, which goes immediately into the first apex of the Club right hander, then it almost straightens before curving into the second apex, which then exits onto the new start/finish International Hangar Straight).

(Notice Alonso stopped sideways at the second apex, after spinning near the end of P3.)

3. The Renault with the new logo for "The Dark Knight Rises" movie on the side.

I wonder if one of them makes the podium, will Renault make him wear a Batman cape, the way DC had to wear a Superman cape when he scored a Red Bull podium at Monaco in around 2008 and the car was carrying advertising for "Superman Returns"?

4. Practicing panning on the Porsche Supercup cars.

5. Looking down the pit straight as the cars queue up for the start of P3.

Gord96BRG

7th July 2012, 18:39

1. Q1 session, with Hamilton in the first Club corner, a Red Bull approaching Vale. The dark clouds in the background were even darker in person...

2. Red Bull's special new paint job just for the British GP

3. A close up...

4. After the rain finally stops after 1.5 hours of heavy downpour in Q2, track marshals clear some of the standing water

Gord96BRG

7th July 2012, 18:44

1. Did I mention that it rained a bunch? ;) Hamilton and Alonso fight for position on the resumption of Q2 (Alonso had been ahead going into Vale, but then slowed waaaay down approaching Club to get a gap to the car ahead, but Hamilton was close behind and wasn't interested in Alonso's gap or being held up by Alonso)

2. A Red Bull (I think) exits Club on to the straight in part 2 of Q2

3. The cold, partly soggy, but very enthusiastic crowd in Club Grandstand during qualifying.

I mentioned it in the Montreal thread, but the same photo disclaimer applies here - these are all about resized down to about 12% of the original size, and no post-processing has been performed. I took a few hundred pics so far, if anybody wants to see a picture of any particular car, driver, cropped, or get the full size pic emailed, let me know.

Gord96BRG

8th July 2012, 16:45

Well, just for the sake of completeness (I hate to leave anything unfinished, sorry!), I'll post a few more pictures from today at Silverstone.

The day started out drizzling, but the light rain had stopped by the time the Park'n'Ride service arrived at the track. I left the hotel at 6 am again, was queued up at the PnR lot by 6:20, got parked up and on a bus by 7... then the bus had to queue up with all the cars at the entrance to Silverstone. :rolleyes: Honestly, their transportation issues are to some extent self-inflicted - they should have had a separate bus lane in for all the shuttle buses running from the several Park'n'Ride lots! (To our surprise and their partial credit, they did have a separate bus exit for departing buses at the end of the event)

The track was dry for all the race events, the sun started peeking out around 12:30, the F1 race started at 1:00 pm, and it was almost warm by the end of the race! It was a fantastic experience all around, and as mentioned earlier I got the full spread of different flavours of the event - cold, windy, pouring rain, mud, horrific traffic, easy traffic, sunny and nearly warm. The fans are very knowledgable and friendly despite poor weather, I had a great time chatting to many different people in the stands, around the circuit, on the buses. They call this the home of modern F1 (Silverstone hosted the very first Formula 1 race in 1950), and the feel of the event is magnificent.

A few photos:

1. Silverstone offered this new concept for hotel rooms - called Snoozebox (http://www.snoozebox.com/home/index.html#welcome), it's basically shipping containers converted to 4 "hotel" rooms each, trucked to an event and stacked up. Instant hotel! (well, 48 hrs to get operational on site). They had 5 in a line, 2 high, 3 rows deep, so that's 30 containers, 120 rooms. They wanted 200 pounds per night!!

2. Very organized marshal stand at entry to Becketts corner complex (each flag location was labelled)

3. A panorama shot looking back at Becketts and Chapel, a very tough, challenging sequence of high speed corners. There's usually no passing in Becketts, but mistakes here always lead to overtaking consequences on the following Hangar Straight, approaching Stowe.

(See the Silverstone Grand Prix track map (http://www.silverstone.co.uk/track/circuit-maps/grandprix-circuit/))

I walked the back part of the circuit this morning while the GP3 and GP2 events were on, Iwatched the GP2 race from here, they're only about 15 sec per lap slower than the F1 cars.

4. One of the "grass" car parks behind Copse corner... Notice the people wearing wellies (rubber boots), at least a quarter of the attendees had rubber boots or tall hiking boots for the muddy conditions everywhere.

5. The drivers "parade" - they load them on a flatbed truck and drive them around the circuit. I prefer Montreal's approach, where the Austin Healey club provides a separate vintage Austin Healey with driver for each race driver to ride in.

Gord96BRG

8th July 2012, 16:52

1, 2, 3. The Royal Air Force's demonstration team the Red Arrows flew at noon, offering exciting precision formations (although I was a bit surprised that they don't do any aerobatics like the Canadian Snowbirds perform). The pictures aren't the greatest, since it was still overcast and cloudy when they flew.

4. You know the camera shots where the camera pans across the track, showing 2 or 3 corners in one smooth view? This is how they do it - this robot camera ran across a string of 4 wires (2 to suspend, 2 to pull in each direction?), so it was constantly whizzing back and forth in front of us. You can see the wires in several of the later photos.

Gord96BRG

8th July 2012, 17:07

Views from my seat in the Luffield B Grandstand. If you held a ticket to one of the grandstands (ie not a general admission ticket), then on Friday and Saturday you could sit in any of the grandstands you liked for any of the action, including F1 practice and qualifying. Your specific seat was not reserved for you on those days, only on Sunday, so if you wanted a covered grandstand when it was raining, you had to get there early and stay there! It actually was great to watch from different parts of the circuit.

While Club Grandstand was probably better for photography and seeing the pit action and podium ceremony, there didn't turn out to be much action coming in to Vale corner. Becketts was supposed to be a must see for the sheer speed and ferocity with which the F1 cars fly through the corners and how quickly they change direction, but from the ground (I couldn't go up into the grandstand today) it wouldn't have been great for the race. It turned out that my seat in Luffield B was about perfect, most of the overtaking action was in front of me at the end of the Wellington Straight into Brooklands corner, since that was the DRS zone. However, it wasn't great for photography, at least as low as I was seated (2nd row), because of the safety fences. ( grandstand map (http://www.silverstone.co.uk/events/2012-Formula-1-Santander-British-Grand-Prix/) - click The Circuit tab )

1. Looking at the end of the Wellington Straight (DRS zone) and Brooklands corner, during the warm-up lap.

2. Looking at the Luffield corner, during the same warm-up lap.

3. Parade lap again, looking towards Woodcote corner and one of the Woodcote grandstands.

Gord96BRG

8th July 2012, 17:15

A bit of the race action:

1. Opening lap with the cars coming through Luffield corner - this shot shows the uncovered Luffield A grandstand, and two of the many general admission viewing areas - the people standing/sitting in front of our Luffield B and the Luffield A grandstans.

2. Perez and the Psychozuelan (I made that nickname up, like it? ;) ) after they came together in Brooklands, right in front of us.

3. Webber right on Alonso's tail and sizing him up, one lap before passing him at that exact same spot (I tried to take a picture of the pass for the lead, but missed it. Yeah, I'm an amateur! :p )

This would apply to any racing event I imagine, but I found it very helpful to search YouTube for 'British Grand Prix' combined with the name of the Grandstand, to see what the view was like for each of them from videos posted online. I'd also recommend that if you want to take good race photos without fences in the way, you need to deliberate pretty carefully about where you'll want to sit to ensure you'll have good sight lines and interesting photo composition and action opportunities.

I don't know if anyone will make it this far, but if you do, I hope this gave you a bit of a feel for the Silverstone F1 GP experience. Thus concludes my self-indulgent writing and photo-posting thread. :D

MX-5.0

8th July 2012, 17:27

Hawkstrike

8th July 2012, 17:27

bajaherbie

8th July 2012, 21:01

raff

8th July 2012, 22:14

angelos

8th July 2012, 22:23

eunosfan

9th July 2012, 08:27

Glad you enjoyed yourself, and the weather didn't put too much of a dampener on things; the weather here has been extreme in the last few weeks though, and in some cases, unprecedented (my Alfa was pummeled by 2" hailstones 2 weeks ago; if I put in an insurance claim, they will likely total the car, such is the panel damage (at least 87 dents). I'm going to live with it.). So, its not always like this, in case anyone is planning a visit.

And, if anyone is planning to come over here, for whatever reason, please make yourself known on the MX5 Owners Club forum, http://www.mx5oc.co.uk/forum/forums/

As I'm sure locals would love to host you. I would have been happy to meet up with you/kick tyres/go for a spin, as I am only 30 minutes from the Silverstone circuit. The Silverstone Classic is happening on the 20th July, and, as usual, the MX5OC will be having its own stand there and substantial presence.

http://www.silverstoneclassic.com/
http://www.mx5oc.co.uk/forum/forums/t/37507.aspx

The last time I was on the circuit was a little while ago though.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n109/saz9961/saz2.jpg
http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n109/saz9961/saz51.jpg